


Broken

by UnaOrion



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Death Star, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:49:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22215832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnaOrion/pseuds/UnaOrion
Summary: I rewrote the scene with Han Solo and Ben.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	Broken

**Author's Note:**

> I rewrote the scene where Han Solo comes to Ben--or rather Ben remembers Han Solo and allows himself to feel love and forgive himself. 
> 
> TROS disappointed me in so many ways but one of the worst was how it did not give Ben a strong redemption arc. After the Death Star fight, I was left not really understanding why Ben turned at that point. I wrote a whole twitter thread about it! https://twitter.com/gREYceLO/status/1211667197543751681?s=20
> 
> Like many of you, I thought Ben should have turned early or midway through TROS and then joined with the Resistance to defeat Palpatine and the First Order. But I did like the idea that Han Solo came to him in his hour of need and that he replayed their last conversation to help himself heal. I'm working with that here but wrote it the way I would have liked to see it. My first fic in years, be kind. 
> 
> Also: I know next to nothing about the extended universe. I borrowed a Lando line here, I think. I don’t know where it’s from. 
> 
> With all the ugliness in the reylo community these days, I thought I should do what reylos do and create and spread joy.

***********************************************************************************************************************************************

“Hey, kid.”

He looks up then, aware. Alive to the voice he’d know in any dream, any turmoil. The voice he hears each time he takes a step away from the light. He hasn’t heard this voice in over a year or been called “kid” in a decade. He used to hate it. 

He turns around to see his smiling father. 

He wasn’t smiling last time, but now he looks as old. Too old, for his age. 

His father says, “Ben,” like it’s a benediction. He feels a flare of his old rebelliousness. How can this man reduce him to a child after all this time? 

“Your son is dead,” he insists. But his words have lost the bite they contained back then. 

“My son is alive,” his father says. He steps closer. Ben, wary and almost shy, steps back, a wave of nauseous shame washing through him. 

“You’re just a memory.” 

“Yeah,” his father concedes. “Your memory.”

His father looks him over, his soiled and sopping coat, his ragged cape, and dripping hair, and says, “Ben, are you ready to come home?”

Ben has never really had a home, he thinks His parents traveled and his bed was whatever hotel suite or guest room he waited for his mother in. But he cannot deny the truth that the scent of his mother’s perfume and his father’s big laugh--those were the hallmarks of home to him. He turned from the mission of the First Order long ago, simply raging through the galaxy trying to make himself whole. If only a breath of his mother’s skin could restore him home. But that can never be. 

“It’s too late,” he says. “She’s gone.” 

His father sobers, pain etched momentarily across his face. But he doesn’t take his eyes from Ben and lays a hand gently on his shoulder. Ben remembers when he first grew taller than his father; the absurd pride he felt in that fact, like it meant something. 

“She never stopped loving you. Not to her last breath.” His father’s words are insistent. “That’s not gone. That will never be gone.” It pierces his chest like nothing has for years and years. Since he overheard his parents’ whisperings. Since he started to believe he was the monster they all said he was. 

He’s shaking violently now, grief pouring through him, a great purge of black bile and pain. The loneliness of his youth, the shadow that fell atop his head, a thousand bitter and vicious thoughts that never quite seemed his own. He feels the weight of the years slip, just a little, from his shoulders. And for the first time, does not attempt to grasp it as it falls and clasp it closer. 

The darkness fades, but it will always be with him--he could no more shake it from him than he could shake off his own shadow. But he knows he will never let it rule him again. Still, he feels adrift. 

“I don’t know what to do,” he admits, half to himself. “I don’t know my place in all this anymore.” 

“There are people who still need you, Ben,” his father says. Then adds, knowingly, “And you need her.”

Ben’s breath huffs. The tiniest laugh. He looks at his father and shakes his head. He glances in the direction of his Tie Whisperer, now gone to who-knows-where. And her with it. 

He shakes his head again and looks back at his father. 

“There’s nothing I can do that she can’t. She’s stronger than I’ve ever been. She doesn’t need me.” His breath huffs out again, grimly, a sigh or a sob. An admission. “I’m too . . . broken.” 

“Not my son,” his father says, defiant. “Not Han Solo’s son. Not Leia Organa’s son. With the blood that runs in your veins, I knew your defiance would shake the stars.” He scoffs softly to himself, rueful. Gently touches his son’s cheek.

“Kid,” he says simply, “you have everything you need.” 

Ben listens to the whorl of the wind above them and the susurrus of the sea below. He hasn’t slept or eaten anything in days but he feels fresher than he can remember. None of the old aches and pains bother him. Even the skin on his face around his scar no longer feels raw or stretched. He looks at his father and remembers the stricken face, the horror of realization, the stain of red light. The blinding anger that took hold then, obliterating any opportunity to think or regret. Until much later; much later; too late. He remembers letting the anguish take hold, stoking it, letting it bend his reason and his will. 

He remembers, but does not feel it now. It’s a relief then, to let go. 

Something else takes over. But it isn’t the rancor he’s come to know. It isn’t threaded with barbs and it doesn’t hurt to give it expression. It feels clean and sweet and so strong he thinks he might shake apart from the need to say it--but how? After all this time? 

“Dad,” he starts. Does it even matter? His father is dead, he’ll never know, he’ll never see his child in the light again. The pain is overwhelming--

Han smiles. 

“I know.” 

And Ben Solo knows what he needs to do.


End file.
